Inside a centuries-old home in Church Crookham, Hampshire, designer Joanna Chisholm of Chisholm Design was handed a room with low beams, a rotten support post, and no kitchen in it at all. What she built back is a master class in fitting a modern family’s life into a space that refuses to be rushed.
When the new owners bought this house, the back of it was barely standing. Part of the outside wall was collapsing. The floor needed leveling, the windows needed replacing, and the post in the middle of the room was, in the designer’s words, not fit to hold up the house. There was no kitchen here to renovate. There was just an old, wonky, light-starved shell, and a couple who loved it exactly because it felt old.
That last part mattered more than anything. The front of the home dates from the 18th or early 19th century, with high ceilings and tall windows. The back, where the kitchen now sits, is 16th century, with heavy oak beams hanging low overhead. Most people would have read those beams as a problem to disguise. Chisholm read them as the whole point.
Meet the Design Team
The industry professionals and creative visionaries behind this beautifully executed kitchen transformation.
Joanna Chisholm
Joanna Chisholm is the founder and principal designer at Chisholm Design, a bespoke Surrey studio renowned for functional, character-rich spaces. Her team specializes in tailored kitchen layouts that seamlessly match a family’s daily lifestyle.
Paul Butcher
Paul Butcher is a master builder at JRB Building. Serving Surrey and Hampshire, he is trusted across the design community for executing high-end residential structural remodels, architectural extensions, and precision heritage renovations.
Julia Currie
Julia Currie is an accomplished interior photographer at Julia Currie Photography. Based in Guildford, she leverages a background in styling and textiles to craft clean portfolios that beautifully capture light and material depth.
Design Specifications & Sources
| Design Element | Source & Finish Specification |
|---|---|
| Island Paint Finish | Pompeian Grey — Little Greene |
| Perimeter Cabinetry Paint | Rolling Fog — Little Greene |
| Range Cooker | Classic Deluxe — Rangemaster |
| Boiling-Water Tap System | Flex or Fusion Tap — Quooker |
| Cabinetry Hardware | Premium Solid Brass Pulls — Crofts & Assinder |
| Natural Stone Flooring | Dijon Tumbled Limestone — Quorn Stone |
| Pendant Lighting fixtures | Chelsea Dome Pendants (Pewter & Brass) — Industville |
The Low Beams Are Intentional
When asked if she knew the ceiling could be an asset rather than a constraint, and her answer is immediate. “It’s a beautiful house built in various periods and the low beams are a real feature of this part of the house,” Joanna says. “We really wanted to highlight these rather than hide them and by carefully designing around them they became a real feature.”
You can see the logic everywhere you look.
The reclaimed oak beams and the chunky central post are left raw and proud, and the rest of the room is kept deliberately quiet so they read as sculpture rather than obstacle.
White walls and ceiling, pale limestone underfoot, and a warm neutral on the perimeter cabinets all push the light around a room that, on a dull day, does not get much of it.
The Pillar in the Middle of the Room
The single most charming move in the kitchen started as the single biggest headache. The original post holding up the ceiling was structurally shot and had to be replaced. Rather than fight to reroute it, the team fitted a sturdy new oak pillar in its place and built the end of the island right around it, so the couple still got the generous breakfast bar they wanted.
There is a lovely bit of craft hiding in plain sight here, too. Because oak keeps moving for years after it is installed, the quartz worktop is not sealed tight to the pillar the way it normally would be. Small gaps are left around the wood on purpose, so the old timber can breathe and shift without cracking the stone. The house, in other words, is still allowed to be alive.
Almost Everything Got Built In
With ceilings this low, anything freestanding would have loomed. So the rule became simple: integrate as much as possible, and let only one thing stand on its own.
“As the ceilings are so low we wanted to integrate as much as possible so things didn’t feel bulky,” Chisholm says, “just leaving the range oven as a standalone item in the existing chimney breast.”
That single exception is a beauty. The range sits in the home’s original fireplace, under a wood lintel and brickwork the owners insisted stay wonky and unstraightened.
An antique mirror backsplash slips in behind it, bouncing light back into the room and quietly hiding the awkwardness of a centuries-old opening. Even the extractor was a fight worth having; the builder threaded the ducting up through the old ceiling and out, with no clean route to follow.
A Whole Working Kitchen Hides Behind Furniture-Style Doors
Here is where the headline earns itself. Because there was almost no room for wall cabinets, Chisholm compensated with a bank of tall units that swallow an astonishing amount of stuff.
The center section is a breakfast cupboard: a coffee machine, a microwave, glassware, and mugs all live behind bi-fold doors that fold flat out of the way, so the lit interior can be left open while you make breakfast and then shut away when you are done.
Flanking it, one tall cabinet holds serving dishes on deep shelves, and the other is a full pantry, with spice racks mounted on the doors, roomy shelves, and open drawers at the base. Closed, the whole wall reads as calm, paneled furniture. Open, it is a pantry, a drinks station, and a small appliance garage all at once.
The Leftover Spaces Did the Heavy Lifting
The cleverest storage in this kitchen is in the places most renovations waste. The slope under the new staircase became an oak wine rack, with extra insulation built in so the nearby larder fridge could not warm the bottles.
The shallow recesses on either side of the fireplace, too tight for much else, became perfect spice and oil cupboards, keeping seasonings by the cooker rather than across the room at the pantry.
Even the larder refrigerator is a feat of patience. It had to be squeezed into the sloping cavity beside the stairs, and the fit was so tight the team could not order it until the staircase was physically built and they could measure the exact angle and depth. A brass ventilation grille above its door, a detail borrowed from antique cabinetry, lets it breathe while tying it to the beams overhead.
The island carries its weight, too. Most of the day-to-day dishware, pans, and flatware live inside it, with a wooden tray and two cutting boards slotted into the side in their own narrow housings. They add a bit of warmth and echo the beams, and they keep the worktop clear. Inside, an oak cutlery drawer is divided down to the last spoon.
The Green Island Brings the Garden Indoors
The room is mostly pale on purpose, but the island gets to be the exception. Its deep, soft gray-green is the color that connects the kitchen to the fields beyond the windows, and choosing it was a careful balancing act.
“The kitchen opens out onto lovely green countryside, and we wanted to echo this in the kitchen without it feeling too dark,” Chisholm explains. “The Pompeian Grey is a deep but soft green that isn’t too harsh and complements the flooring as well as the antique brass hardware. We decided that the remaining cabinetry needed to be something lighter to keep the space feeling bright.”
That is the whole palette strategy in one answer. The green grounds the room and ties it to the garden; the warmer neutral on everything else keeps the low, beamed space from closing in. The 8-foot island is large, but its corners are gently curved where it meets a walkway, softening what could have felt like a hard block in a tight room.
The Cleverness Carries Into the Laundry and Mudroom Next Door
The thinking does not stop at the kitchen door. In the adjoining mudroom, ceiling-high cabinets painted to match the kitchen hide a hot water cylinder, the boiler, and a water softener, with coat hooks, a bench, and a boot cupboard with baskets above tucked alongside.
On the laundry side sit a tall freezer within easy reach of the kitchen, a stacked washer and dryer, and storage for cleaning essentials. There is even a dog shower for the family cockapoo after muddy country walks.
Why It Works
What makes this kitchen worth “studying” is not any single gadget. It’s the discipline of designing in reverse: waiting on the builders, measuring around a staircase that did not exist yet, leaving gaps for wood that would keep moving, and refusing to straighten a single crooked beam.
Chisholm let a 16th-century house stay exactly as stubborn as it wanted to be, then quietly fit an entire modern kitchen into the gaps it left behind.
The result is a room that feels bright, calm, and almost pared back, while holding far more than it lets on. That is the trick, and it’s hiding behind every closed door.
